sb900 help needed asap

[Harvey_nikon]

Currently doing a shoot for some friends and using one studio light running as a slave to camera right.

Camera left is 1 sb900 through an umbrella, set as remote, channel a 1.

In front of camera lighting the white backrooms from behind is another sb900. Remote and channel b 1. It was doing a great job lighting backrooms from behind but has now stopped working.

When the camera shutter goes off all I get from this one flash is a series of beeps. It works on camera or if I push the fire button, just not remotely. It's had fresh batteries, tried changing groups, changing position etc but all I get is beep nothing had changed in between shoots either, one it was working and the next it wasn't.

Not overheated either according to the screen.

Any ideas? If I can get it working it'll save me loads of pp

edit: shooting manually too, no ttl etc.

 

[Harvey_nikon]

I've removed batteries and left it, tried again, same issue

 

[jpw]

I think the series of beeps means it hasn't understood the signal, has anything changed as regards obstructing the line of sight/ambient light levels that could be confusing it?

 

[Harvey_nikon]

no nothing changed, there was about 10 seconds between them and it just went mad.

It's working now as a remote without anything else there so it looks like I need to investigate some more.

Annoyingly the studio light for some reason stopped working as well which resulted in me shooting with just 1 strobe + umbrella.

Good times

 

[JonathanRyan]

Beeps all the same or are they high/low? How many? What pattern?

Most likely is overheat (it fits all your symptoms - did you check the thermo readout?).

 

[Harvey_nikon]

high pitched, 3-5 beeps, constant.

overheat was fine, temp was ok according to the screen

 

[JonathanRyan]

The light sensor of remote flash could not receive correctly the command light from master flash. The light sensor could not detect when to stop firing in sync with the master flash unit, because a strong reflection from the remote flash unit itself or light from another remote flash unit may have entered the light sensor window. Change the direction or position of the remote flash unit and reshoot.

http://www.nikonusa.com/pdf/manuals/Speedlights/SB-900_en.pdf page D-42

 

[Al Brum]

no nothing changed, there was about 10 seconds between them and it just went mad.

It's working now as a remote without anything else there so it looks like I need to investigate some more.

Annoyingly the studio light for some reason stopped working as well which resulted in me shooting with just 1 strobe + umbrella.

Good times

Did the ambient light increase such as the sun coming out? That would explain the Nikon and studio light not seeing the trigger signal if both are using remote sensors.